My articles emerge depending on what ever tickles my fancy; hope you enjoy the ride. It started several years ago when one of my op-ed pieces to the Houston Chronicle got butchered; been blogging ever since.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Antique Laptop Computer

The Wine Commonsewer put a short blurb on his Facebook page the other day about how his new cell phone has three times more memory than his first computer. I brought up how our first business computer didn't have a hard drive at all; two floppy ports, one for the program disk and the other for data. If the program required more information you had to switch disks in and out, say for spell check on a word processing program. I still have my first laptop, a Compaq and it still works, a little.

That got me to wondering if the old laptop would still crank up after all these years of collecting dust. I found the “brick” as it was called, plugged it into the back of the computer and switched it on. Amazing, the screen came to life, the hard drive sputtered a couple of times and let me know there was a systems error; basically it was working just as it did when I retired it for one that was reliable.

As for the new fangled cell phones; haven’t got much use for all the fancy “extras”, just want to use it as a phone believe it or not. The only “extra”, if you could call it that, is the hands free plug I use when driving; wish everyone else would do the same.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not in favor of the Nanny State legislating common sense laws that require things like that, just mentioning how much safer it would make things if those with a cell phone stuck in the crick of their neck could see the other half of the driving environment. I keep an eye on folks putting make up on, the whole time their sun visor is down, not that they’re watching the road, so they can use the mirror. I see folks with their favorite novel propped up on the steering wheel, that can get you a little closer to “the end”. Others have a laptop in the front seat which they're constantly checking; half a second to check traffic while throttling down the street. No, if common sense has to be legislated it wouldn’t do any good; folks are going to be stupid humans regardless.

Lucy just got a new cell phone called, a Gravity, that has a miniature keyboard for texting, a camera and some other features. My daughter has one even fancier that has internet just like you were at your desk at home. I like mine because it can be used to get me out of this insanity; flipping the cover, “Scotty, beam me up.”

About Me

I am a retired City of Houston Police Officer having served 20 years as a patrol officer. I am currently self employed as an automotive locksmith. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I am married to my first and only sweetheart. We met while working at the Astrodome; she was the popcorn girl and I was the soda boy, both working in the back areas during our high school years.
We have 3 grown children and two grand children.